Here we have a reproach (which may also serve as a suggestion) to the reader. “You have sent me no gift [or honorarium] as an acknowledgment [of the pleasure given to you]. Others may be deceived by your words and your smiling countenance [into believing you to be a fair-minded man who would recognize his obligations]. To me it is evident you are a dissembler.” (The term is apparently used here to describe one shirking an obligation).
Martial is quite clear in his mind that no one who has read his productions and has not felt an indebtedness to their author, and who has not taken measures to discharge the same, can be an honorable man.
Et tantum gratis pagina nostra placet.[203]
“My book gives so much pleasure at no cost” (to the receiver).
Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus.
Quid prodest? nescit sacculus ista meus.[204]
“It is said that (even in distant) Britain my verses are sung. What advantage is that? [to me]. My purse knows nothing of it.”
Such a complaint may be interpreted in one of several ways. The author may have had payment for his Italian editions, but have been unable to exercise control over unauthorized issues of his books in distant parts of the empire; or he may have sold to his distributing publisher, Tryphon, all rights in the verses, in which case the direct advantage of extended sales would accrue only to the publisher; or there may have been no actual sales in Britain, but single copies carried by officers or travellers may have found their way there, and their presence, referred to in correspondence or by returning travellers, have given to the author the impression that a large reading public in the far north was appreciating his poetry. A very slight reference would serve to excite the imagination of so self-confident an author as Martial.
Martial seems to have been in the habit, not unknown to modern writers, and particularly to English writers, of pitting one publisher against another, in order to secure the largest bid for a new work. At one time he had no less than four publishers in charge of the sale of his works, Tryphon, Atrectus, Polius, and Secundus.
The last named issued a special pocket edition of the Epigrams.